Tag Archives: France

Effort to get people to cover up in Ile du Levant, France, exposes discord in longtime nudist colony

By Noemie Bisserbe

ILE DU LEVANT, France—On a blustery morning on this Mediterranean island, dozens of naked men and women marched arm-in-arm in defense of their right to bare bottoms.

The target of their protest was Jean-Yves Gacon, who is wielding his authority as head of the island’s homeowners association to force people to wear clothing. The coverup has the backing of the mayor’s office as well as local police who are stopping anyone who dares stroll through the village square without clothes.

“The traditions of this place need to be preserved,” says Elizabeth Varet, a 70-year-old retired English teacher who attended the protest, held last year, in the buff.

So, it was a year ago to the day that we set off on our “naturist odyssey” across Europe; a three month expedition that would begin on the small island of Ile du Levant, circle around to the south of Barcelona for a stay at El Templo del Sol, and following an extended stay at our naturist home base, La Jenny (from whence I am writing this post – now a year later), straight across Europe with two stops in Provence before making our way to the Adriatic coast where we would finally end up in Greece.

La Sabliere

At least to my sensibilities, Provence is what people think of when they think of the South of France, along with the nearby Cote d’Azur and the legendary St. Tropez peninsula, which seems to have a reputation in the imagination of most Americans as the land of a…

Where to begin the account of our long, usually amazing (but sometimes stormy), relationship with the expansive naturist resort on the Cote d’Argent (Silver Coast) of southwest France – Domaine Residential Naturiste La Jenny. Suffice it to say… this is a long one!

While I’m not typically inclined to statements with self-aggrandizing superlatives, I have probably put more information out there on the web about La Jenny than any other American naturist. You can find loads of banter about La Jenny and the other south Atlantic resorts on various French naturist forums like VivreNu, but of course, it’s all in French! I have reviews up on Trip Advisor (which need to be updated) and two previous website endeavors that have since been lost from my archives, but are probably still floating around out there someplace in cyberspace.